Quotes from Robert Greene

Power works best when it is indirect - never coercing people; instead, getting them to voluntarily align with your interests.

Ethics and power are separate.

To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two - to fix your opponent's expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

Often people become our friend or follower with an undercurrent of resentment in our having more success than they have. They secretly desire the opportunity to take us down a notch; they have a nose for any misstep on our part they can exploit.

Why regret anything? Where does it get you to regret anything you've ever done in your life? It gets you nowhere. It's a pathetic emotion that you can wallow in.

I'd done a lot of research in Hollywood and in academia. I love research and so I wanted to kind of ground the book in history, in things that I read that were universal and timeless and then kind of let my own experiences sort of filter through all of this history.

When I was researching my book 'The 33 Strategies of War', I studied Napoleon extensively and I found myself wanting to ask Napoleon questions about things he did, and if was I interpreting his actions correctly.

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you're supposed to do.

The Nihilistic Troll might pretend to be acting in the service of some cause or leader, but don't be fooled. The cause and their supposedly strong convictions are simply a way to justify and provide cover for their abusive behavior.

All the most successful people nowadays who are truly successful and innovative in their field are not people motivated by money.

I want to be able to write, that's my first love and I don't want to deviate from it even though I probably could have made a lot more money.

I've always loved black culture; I don't know any other way to put it. Since I was a kid I loved music and early jazz, Sly and the Family Stone.

The music business is just the worst as far as Machiavellian, sharky, evil games going on, as far as manipulation.

Hasty climbers have sudden falls.

Only create associations with positive affinities. Make this a rule of life and you will benefit more than from all the therapy in the world.

Understand: A person of power instills a kind of fear by deliberately unsettling those around him to keep the initative on his side.

Deception is a developed art of civilization and the most potent weapon in the game of power

A lot of things in history are timing, and it's very peculiar because in retrospect things [and] people can look more brilliant or necessary than they actually were.

I often daydream about the future, thinking of the world in 100, 200 years, imagining what it looks like, feels like. I hope that my books are like ghosts that will inhabit this future.

Weak character will neutralize all of the other possible good qualities a person might possess.

Compared to other animals, we humans enter the world remarkably weak and helpless. We remain relatively weak for many years before we can truly operate on our own.

Even as a child, Muhammad Ali got perverse pleasure out of being different. He liked the attention it got him, but most of all he just liked being himself: odd and independent.

As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them.

When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all.